Compared to Blockbuster, yeah Gamestop is swimming in cash. When they filed for bankruptcy BB as an entire company was valued at about 1/3 of just the amount of profit Gamestop made last quarter. BB had a debt over a billion dollars. They're not really comparable at all.

I don't know enough about Gamestop's business model to say this will lose them money or not. It is retail, and the goal in retail is to get people in the door, which this will do. Obviously they're going to be hoping that when Joe John goes in to swap out one game for another he might snag a used copy of something else or buy some toy or something else, that's just smart business. How much the customers will do that remains to be seen. I agree hardcore gamers really don't care to use Gamestop any more, not when Best Buy has GCU, plus online retailers like Amazon exists. Last month I went into a GS and bought a used copy of Stick of Truth on 360 to play on my Xbox One and I also signed up for a year of their Elite Pro or whatever membership, because there seems to be a glitch or sale or extreme flip situation on CAG once a week involving Gamestop. But that was the first time in months and months I'd been in there. But hey, this is at least a start to change that. I'll gladly go in there multiple times a month to swap games out if there's no shitty fine print here. This is one of those times when it's a good thing for consumers that a company might need to change their ways to generate more revenue.

Fair enough on the debt vs. profit for the two companies.  It doesn't make sense to compare them in that case.

On the matter of this losing them money - it absolutely does, with simple pattern recognition.  If loads of people sign up for this, say, 100 per store, that's 100 used games off the shelf.  And since you can choose any used game - even the 50$ ones - that's profit walking out the door for however long it's gone.  That's potentially every used copy of Assassin's Creed Origins and Fifa 18 gone from the store. 

And that's where I think I smell the rat in this deal.

Gamestop is notorious for lying about how many copies of new games they have in order to sell used copies of said games.  I get the impression this program will only be upsold to people purchasing multiple games at a time.  Those already in the program will be told they're "all out" of the Fractured but Whole and GTAV when requested for rental, meanwhile football mom Sally will be able to plonk down 45 quid for used Mario Kart 8 no fuss.

I know I sound conspiracy as hell here, but it's Gamestop.  We all know their history of doing things exactly like this.